


boy violet

by ohallows



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (it’s literally just times the party comforted hamid mostly), Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Holding Hands, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25609324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohallows/pseuds/ohallows
Summary: Five times Hamid held someone’s hand.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan & Everyone
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	boy violet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimabutch (CWoodP)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWoodP/gifts).



> HAPPY BDAY CHARLIE I HOPE ITS A GOOD ONE AND I HOPE U LIKE THIS

Hamid can’t stop shaking. He can’t feel his left arm, and he’s doing his level best not to look down at the claws sitting where his hand should be. That’s a problem for a future Hamid, because current Hamid is barely able to keep his thoughts straight as it is, and adding one more problem to the pile is just going to end with him completely snapped. And he  _ can’t  _ snap, because Zolf can’t move his legs, and if Hamid falls apart even more then Sasha will have to figure out how to get  _ two  _ of them out as opposed to just one, and Hamid  _ can’t  _ crack, he  _ can’t,  _ so he needs to continue breathing, continue focusing on getting out, and  _ not  _ slide farther into panic. 

It doesn’t help that he can’t even do magic; the grime and dirt and mud settles on his skin and he can feel it caking, but he can’t even muster up the ability to snap his fingers and clean himself off. The fear is cloying, crawling up Hamid’s throat and choking him as he stares, blindly, out into what be a massive, cavernous room, one 

Sasha - Zolf had promised that she was okay, that she was just looking around and trying to find a way out. He believes him - Zolf wouldn’t lie, not about this, but Hamid still wants her to come back so that he can make sure for himself. 

He needs to stop shaking first. It’s pitch black down here, which isn’t helping the slow, creeping panic along his spine, and all his thoughts are starting to slowly spiral again. 

“Hamid?” he hears a quiet whisper at his side, a voice filled with concern - Zolf. “I need you to talk to me, okay? Just - about anything, er - let’s just get you speaking. How’s that sound?”

Hamid turns to look at where he thinks Zolf is; even this close, he can barely make him out in the darkness. “Talk?” he repeats, voice hoarse, and he’s almost shocked to hear himself sounding so  _ normal.  _ “About what?”

“Er…” Zolf says, casting about for a topic, and Hamid can hear his fingers tapping against the stone on his other side. “Favorite food?” 

Hamid nods, thinking for a moment. “My - my mother used to make, er - it’s been so long since I’ve had her cooking, but - it’s called om ali, erm, a dessert? It’s very sweet, and. Mama added so much coconut to it, I - I used to steal some of it, before she could put it in? But it was so good, whenever she cooked it, er. I haven’t been… I haven’t had it in a while.” Hamid can feel his breathing evening out as he speaks, fear being replaced with the standard melancholy of missing home, but at least that’s something he’s used to. The panic starts to bleed out of his veins, as well, and he becomes incredibly,  _ incredibly  _ aware of how mussed up he is, and how much muck is sticking to his skin.

“Feel a bit better?” Zolf asks, and Hamid nods. 

“I mostly feel dirty,” Hamid says, lifting his completely soiled shirt-sleeve up. “There’s mud and dirt everywhere. Eugh.” He closes his eyes and snaps, and while it’s not a perfect cast, most of the dirt vanishes. 

“There you go,” Zolf says; Hamid can hear the worry under his voice, can hear how stressed out and close to the edge Zolf is too, and it makes him come back to himself a bit. 

“Thanks,” Hamid murmurs, and pulls his knees up to his chest. His left arm is still useless, even with Zolf’s healing, but that’s something he can deal with… later. 

He feels Zolf’s hand brush against his right one and turns his palm up so that their hands interlock. Zolf’s hand is warm and strong and rough, and he squeezes Hamid’s hand as he scoots closer, rubbing his other hand across Hamid’s back. 

“Buck up, Hamid. It’ll be okay,” Zolf says, quiet in the darkness, and Hamid grips his hand as tightly as he can, willing him to be right.

—

Hamid feels… numb, staring at the wall opposite himself but not making out anything. Everything around him is nothing but a blur, and he knows people are speaking but he just. Can’t make any of it out, really. It’s mostly just a hum, and he can make out Sasha and Grizzop’s voices intertwined with some unfamiliar ones, but he can’t understand anything they’re saying.

Aziza is dead. Bertie is dead, too, and Hamid supposes he should be more upset about that then he feels, but his entire world has shrunken down to the fact that his eldest sister, his  _ family,  _ is gone, and Hamid was  _ here,  _ was literally in the room, and still couldn’t do anything to stop it. Couldn’t do anything to protect her. The guilt is a well of pain in his chest, so deep that he feels like he’s on the verge of drowning. 

Another tear slips down his cheek as he sniffs, curling in on himself under his blanket. Sasha sounds worried, now, and he doesn’t want her to - she shouldn’t be worried, they defeated Kafka - but he doesn’t have much time to consider more before the door is being kicked in and then Hamid is caught up in the chaos that trails in the wake of the cult of Mars. They’re dragged into their respective rooms by the cult, and Hamid explodes - figuratively, of course, he doesn’t even have any energy left to cast a single spell, as much as he’s tempted to. 

The commander leaves the room, leaving him alone, and Hamid slumps back against the chair before dropping his head into his hands and starting to shake. He knows he should be trying to figure out how to get out, should be trying to figure out how to protect Sasha, should be figuring out what they’re going to have to do next, but he just… can’t. His thoughts are spiraling down, farther and farther, and being trapped inside a dark-ish room alone for an extended amount of time isn’t helping. 

Aziza’s gone. The thought keeps swirling around his mind, an unpleasant truth that Hamid wishes he could escape from. Aziza’s gone, and Hamid is going to have to face his family, and he’s going to have to help plan the  _ funeral  _ and -

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and sets his hands down on the table in front of him. They’re still claws, but he doesn’t have the energy to speculate on why, right now. It’s all he can do to keep himself mostly together. 

They’re finally let out, and Hamid sees Wilde on the other side of the hallway, their unlikely saviour. Hamid doesn’t even want to speak to him, just wants to go back to his room and collapse into bed, sink deep into a sleep that will let him forget about this, at least for a few hours. Still, he has a job to do; he can’t muster up a dirty look for the cult of Mars commander, as much as he wants to, and instead just goes over to Sasha and Grizzop, wrapping his arms around himself in lieu of pulling the two of them into one. He knows they don’t really. Like it, which. It’s fine. They look at him, concerned, and Hamid’s sure that he looks a complete mess, but even snapping seems such an effort that he’s finding it hard to care.

Sasha and Grizzop seem to notice that he isn’t up for speaking, and do it for him. He’s… so thankful for them, really, and wishes that he could make his vocal cords work so that he can tell them. But they’re completely uncooperative, so Hamid just stands there and lets them work out what the move is next. Wilde eventually leaves them alone, and Sasha and Grizzop lead Hamid back to the hallway where they’ll be staying at the university. As far as Hamid understands it, they’ll be reconvening tomorrow at breakfast to come up with a solid plan; he’s fine with that. He just wants to sleep, anyway. Grizzop heads off to his room, not before giving Hamid another clearly-worried look, but Sasha hangs back, lingering a bit. 

“I’ll be alright,” he says, and he knows his smile doesn’t reach his eyes, but thankfully Sasha doesn’t call him on it. She still doesn’t seem like she believes him, not in the slightest, so Hamid takes a step back, hand on the door to his room. “Really.”

Sasha doesn’t say anything, just looks at him, face twisting into a complicated emotion that Hamid doesn’t really know how to read. She nods, after what feels like hours, but still doesn’t move. Hamid turns around, not sure what else she’s looking for, and starts to open his door. 

A moment later he feels her hand grab his. It doesn’t last more than a quick squeeze, just a second of Sasha letting him know that he isn’t alone. Emotional gestures really,  _ really  _ aren’t her thing, so this means… well, a lot, really, that she’s comforting him this way. 

“Thanks,” he whispers under his breath, and Sasha gives him a quick nod before disappearing into her own room. 

—

Everything around them is sand, blowing and billowing against them until Hamid can barely tell which way is up and which way is down. He squints, trying to keep his eyes open as much as he can even as the dust flies at them. 

“We have to - stay together!” he shouts, choking on the sand as the wind whips it into his mouth. He can only just make out Sasha, a shadow through the dust, and he reaches out blindly until his hand finds another. There’s a grunt he recognises as Grizzop, and he stumbles forward as Grizzop tugs at him. Hamid turns his back to the wind as much as he can - it’s not as helpful as he’d hoped, with the wind starting to turn into a cyclone. 

He doesn’t even know which way to go to get out of this thing; for all he knows, they could just be moving deeper into the storm. The visibility is horrible; Hamid can barely see Grizzop and Sasha next to him, and he doesn’t have the foggiest idea for what direction they should move in. Staying put might be the safest option - if they knew how long the sandstorm was going to last. 

Hamid swears a bit, in his head, wishing he had a better idea of what to do. All he  _ knows  _ about sandstorms, really, is not to get caught in one, and it’s been so  _ long  _ since he’s been home that he hadn’t really thought about it in any massive way since leaving for England ten years ago. 

“I’m going to try something!” Hamid calls, and Grizzop - what little of Grizzop’s face he can see - looks incredibly sceptical.

“Don’t do anything stupid!” Grizzop yells back, barely audible over the rushing wind, and Hamid nods. 

“It’ll help!” he says; Grizzop doesn’t look completely convinced, but he doesn’t stop Hamid, either. 

Hamid covers his mouth with his sleeve and takes a breath mostly devoid of sand, before spreading his free arm wide to try and cast an endure elements spell on all three of them. He picked the wrong moment, though; the wind picks up before Hamid notices, and it catches his suit, moving so harshly that it knocks him off balance as he shouts in surprise. 

It’s enough to force his hand to slip out of Grizzop’s grip, and he cries out, buffeted back by the wind and the sand rising up on all sides of him. He throws his arms in front of his face, a reflex more than anything else, and stumbles back as the storm whips around him. 

“Grizzop!” he yells, panic spiking through his chest as the wind catches in his cloak, pulling him away from his friends. He can’t get lost in the desert, he  _ can’t,  _ he -

A hand snags his, gripping tight enough that it hurts, and Hamid blinks away tears as he’s able to make out Grizzop’s face, looking just as panicked as he feels. He immediately feels more steady on his feet, using Grizzop as a balance. Slowly, he creeps closer, pulling his cloak around himself as tightly as he can with one free hand. 

“Got you!” Grizzop shouts, and Hamid makes it back to his friends, shoulder-to-shoulder with Grizzop as his heart rate starts to decrease slightly. In an instant, Sasha is around them as well, hunched down as Hamid feels Sasha grab onto his cloak. Hamid reaches back and grabs her sleeve, carefully avoiding the knives there.

“Thank you!” Hamid calls desperately, holding tight to Grizzop’s hand as Grizzop pulls him through the sand and the wind. 

Before long, they run into a stranger, who is able to shuttle them toward a nearby shelter, but Hamid doesn’t let go of Grizzop’s hand until the stranger has led them into the temple, and even then he hesitates. The sandstorm had been - worse than Hamid has ever remembered Cairo being, and for a moment he really thought he was going to be lost to the wind. He does eventually drop Grizzop’s hand, though, feeling a bit awkward with it all, and begins to nervously brush his hands down the front of his robes. Sasha does the same; Hamid thinks that they all rather look as though they fought a beach and lost terribly, which he supposes isn’t too far from the truth. 

“Thank you,” he says, and Grizzop shrugs, upending his quiver after pulling all the arrows out of it. A pile of sand builds up on the floor, and Hamid follows his lead, shaking himself out and snapping to get rid of the mess being left behind. 

“No problem,” Grizzop says. He finishes dusting himself off, and scowls as he bats the side of his head, knocking some sand loose from his ear. “Not going to let you get away that easy, yeah?”

Grizzop claps him on the shoulder and turns on a heel, following the stranger down the hallway. Hamid hesitates, just a moment, but follows as well, unable to hide the small smile creeping along his face. 

—

“Hamid?” It’s a whisper in the dark, only just loud enough for Hamid to hear it, and too quiet for Zolf, sitting on the outside of the cell and dozing, to make out. “Are you awake?” 

He rolls over on his cot to lay on his back. It’s still pitch black in the cell, but there’s a small shaft of moonlight coming in through the tiny window just above them. The light doesn’t help much; it’s mostly too dark for Hamid to make anything out, but he’s just able to see Azu laying on her own cot, staring at him.  _ See  _ is… a generous term, honestly. It’s more like a shadow against darkness, a slight outline of a shape that Hamid recognises as Azu.

He realises he hasn’t answered her question almost too late. “Yes,” he says, and Azu hums, across the cell. “I can’t sleep.”

They’ve been in the cell for a few days, now; it must have been at least halfway, even if Hamid had mostly lost count. Sleep has been… happening less often than Hamid would like. The days are usually spent with him chatting to Zolf, asking more questions about what happened in his time away, but it’s not helped by Zolf refusing to answer any questions that could be deemed sensitive. Hamid  _ wishes  _ he could show Zolf that it was really them, but he understands, mostly based on what Curie and Einstein have said, how everyone refuses to take even the slightest of risk in this new world. 

“Is it the nightmares?” Azu asks, sounding concerned, and Hamid shakes his head - she has darkvision, she can easily see him. He’s not lying; you have to be asleep to have nightmares, and Hamid’s waking hours are haunted by visions of Sasha and Grizzop and Aziza, all blaming him for what happened to them. He doesn’t get to sleep until the exhaustion pulls him in, most nights. 

“I’m just… not tired,” he says. “I don’t know why. Every time I close my eyes I - I see  _ them  _ and I just - just don’t want to keep them shut, anymore.” 

Azu is silent for a moment. “I… see them, too,” she confesses, voice carefully moderated to hide the emotion that Hamid knows is lurking just beneath the surface. They’ll need to talk about it, soon. Maybe when they’re out of this damned cell. 

“I’ll always be here, Azu,” Hamid says in lieu of anything else, determination making his voice a bit louder than he intends it to be. Azu takes a deep breath, Hamid can hear it across the cell, but eventually she turns to face him. Hamid mirrors her motions, and she reaches out with a hand. He rests his hand in hers, curling up on his small cot. Their linked hands hang in the spaces between their two cots, and Hamid breathes a sigh of relief. Azu seems markedly less tense now that she’s got a hold of his hand, and Hamid swears he can  _ hear  _ her shoulders relaxing as Azu shifts on her cot to make the position more comfortable. 

“Get some rest,” he says, and falls silent when Zolf stirs on the outside of the cell. It’s… well, it’s  _ strange,  _ having him back, and while Hamid still does trust Zolf with his life, still believes in him, he doesn’t necessarily want Zolf to be listening in to this part. “I’ll try as well. Promise.”

“Do you?” Azu asks, reproachfully, and Hamid laughs a bit, feeling only a little caught out. “You’ve said that before.”

He nods, conceding the point, and tucks his free hand under his cheek. “I - I don’t really have a god to swear on, but. If I did, er, I would. I promise I’ll try to sleep, Azu.”

Azu makes a mostly satisfied noise in the back of her throat and adjusts her position one more time before finally falling silent. It isn’t long before her breathing slows, and Hamid lays there in the dark for a little bit before he closes his eyes as well. He did promise, after all. 

Hamid isn’t sure when sleep claims him, exactly, but when he wakes the next morning, his and Azu’s hands are still tightly linked together, and a rush of warmth runs through his chest at the site. The two of them are going to stick together until the end. 

—

Hamid wakes up in the dark with a start, shooting up from his makeshift bed on the floor of the cell. His heart is pounding from a nightmare, only the shadows of which still exist in his mind. He remembers watching everyone around him slowly disappearing before he could do anything, but nothing else, apart from the terrifying panic running through his veins.

It takes him longer than it should to realise that his hand isn’t empty. He glances up and sees Cel looking over the side of their hammock at him, sympathetic look on their face. At his side, Azu is still sleeping soundly, and he can see Zolf relegated to the small chair outside of the cell as he slumbers. Barnes and Carter have taken the hallway and the stairs respectively, and Hamid lets himself breathe a sigh of relief as he reassures himself that everyone is here, is safe. 

“Cel?” Hamid says after he’s found everyone, throat feeling an awful mix of raw and tight. “Did - my apologies, did I wake you?”

Cel shakes their head. “Nah. I normally don’t sleep that soundly anyway. Did you know that two in the morning is sometimes the  _ best  _ for ideas? There’s just a different perspective that being up when everyone else isn’t gives you, I mean - some of my most unconventional ideas have come from being awake that early! Not that Jasper cares much for it, he always loves his twelve hours but, well, you can’t keep creativity locked into a  _ timetable. _ ”

“No - no, I suppose not,” Hamid says with a weak smile. “Er - not that I’m complaining, it’s quite nice, actually, but. Why are you holding my hand?”

“I heard you having a nightmare,” they admit, and there’s an uncharacteristically serious and concerned look on their face as they squeeze Hamid’s hand, which they still haven’t let go of. “Not, uh, unfamiliar with those, myself, you know? Thought maybe this would help. I mean, just knowing someone was there. Some people don’t like being woken up from their nightmares and we haven’t really had a chance to discuss if any of you do or not, so. Figured better safe than sorry!”

Hamid feels a little sheepish; he’d thought he’d gotten the nightmares under control, and hadn’t really wanted anyone else to see him like this. He supposes it’s a bit of a victory that it’s only Cel, but he still doesn’t want to be… he doesn’t know. A burden. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and Cel squeezes his hand, looking a bit confused.

“For what?” they ask, and Hamid realises… he doesn’t really know, actually. 

“Just… for all this, really,” he says, and Cel blinks down at him.

“You’re sorry for… having nightmares?” they say, and Hamid nods, slightly. “Listen, uh, little buddy, it - you don’t have to apologise for that? Ever? We’ve - the institute was a lot, like, more than even I was expecting, and I knew Yoshida  _ pretty  _ well, I like to think, and I know I don’t  _ really  _ know a whole lot about what’s happened to you over the past… year? I actually. Wow, don’t know. Any of that, I guess, but, uh. Pretty sure it’s something that’s standard to have nightmares about, you know?”

“I suppose,” Hamid says, and plays with an errant string from the blanket on the floor. 

“It’s okay to have nightmares,” they say with a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure one of us will always be around to help you through them.”

“Thanks, Cel,” he says, with a hint of a real, genuine smile on his face. They let go of his hand to flash him a thumbs up and then tuck themselves back into their hammock, gangly limbs sticking out over the side. 

“Think you’ll be able to go back to sleep, little buddy?” they ask around a yawn, and Hamid settles back into Azu’s side, tucking his hands under his head as the best approximation of a pillow he can find. 

“Yes, er - yes, I think so,” he answers. The nightmare is mostly faded away, now, only remnants playing around the back of his mind. They’re easy enough to push away, now, especially since he can hear and see everyone in the cell, a reassurance that he’s grateful for. “Really, Cel. We. Er, I’m glad we met you.”

They peek back over the side of the hammock, face splitting into a wide grin. “I’m glad I met you too! And now I’m going to catch a  _ few  _ more winks because we’re  _ still  _ stuck in this cage for a while and sleeping makes the time move faster.”

They disappear back into the hammock and Hamid smiles at the bottom of it as they get comfortable. Their snores follow shortly after, and Hamid curls back into Azu’s side, hoping that he’ll follow suit soon.


End file.
